Senior Presidential Advisor (SPA) in charge of Poverty Alleviation in Busoga Mrs. Florence Mutyabule urges stakeholders to join hands with the government to urgently address the alarming rate of road crashes in the country.
She laments that road crashes significantly undermine government efforts to fight poverty through various programmes, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and socio-economic instability in families and communities.
As a mother and former head teacher who supervised the popular Buckley High School in Iganga for years, Mrs Mutyabule says the loss of a child in a road is so devastating for families, particularly mothers who invest immense emotional, physical, and psychological energy into nurturing children from conception to adulthood.
“…the loss of young lives is a tragic setback for our nation, we cannot advance as a country while losing our youth to road crashes every day, the time to act is now by everyone…”,she calls.
Mrs. Mutyabule observes that the issue of road accidents generally is retrogressive because they have a big economic burden in funeral and medical expenses those families and the nation bear.
She says road crashes often overwhelm healthcare systems, diverting resources from preventive care and other essential services to treat and care for survivors who also end up being grounded for months.
“…so by addressing road safety, our government can strengthen poverty reduction efforts, protecting vulnerable populations and promoting socio-economic stability through Emyooga, PDM, and education…”Mrs. Mutyabule calls.
She is advocating for a multi-pronged approach to tackle the problem, including retraining drivers and renovation of roads to reduce accidents.
The SPA is also urging leaders at all levels( including religious and cultural) to launch sensitization programmes in public forums, similar to those employed in the fight against epidemics like HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, Ebola and Mpox.
Aware that the emotional toll of losing a child always leads to long-term psychological trauma, anxiety, and depression, Mrs Florence Mutyabule recommends initiatives that can provide psycho-social support to the affected families.
“…professional counselling can help such families cope with grief and trauma while support groups can also provide a safe space for families to share their experiences and receive the necessary emotional support…”she urges.
She also stresses that communities can come together to support affected families and advocate for improved road safety measures to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future within their local settings.
The comments followed a disturbing statistics released a few days ago by SP Michael Kananura, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety indicating that 239 children were killed in various road crashes in the last nine months.
SP Kananura, during a news briefing, told reporters in Kampala that children aged between 5 and 18 years were killed while being dropped off or picked up from their schools in the last two terms.
According to the Uganda Police Force (UPF), driving vehicles or riding motorcycles in a dangerous mechanical condition and reckless driving are always the major causes of accidents.
The Traffic and Road Safety Regulations issued in 2020 prohibits the use of mobile phones while driving or riding, but reports suggest there are gaps in the enforcement because most drivers including top public officers are culprits, which puts the police in a real dilemma.
According to Health Journalist Network Uganda (HEJNU), Uganda records 13 deaths daily on Uganda’s roads, one of the most alarming in the world.
In 2023 alone, 4,806 Ugandans died in road crashes, an increase from the 4,534 deaths in 2022.
The police said of the total fatalities,pedestrians accounted for 1,675 deaths, motorcyclists 1,520,motorcycle passengers 614,vehicle passengers 324, and drivers 232.
What You Need To Know:
According to police, many vehicles on the roads are not routinely inspected and are in dangerous mechanical conditions (DMCs), chiefly because of negligence of drivers and owners and the police, some who prefer bribes
A research article conducted by Dr Sulaiman Al Habib found out that many roads have potholes and poor drainage due to inadequate maintenance, which makes the roads impassable, leading to crashes
The research findings titled A Rapid Assessment of Road Crashes in Uganda: Notes from the Field (November 2022) published in a medical journal, also found out that most roads are narrow single carriage, two way roads without a median and with few opportunities for overtaking leading to head-on collisions.
Dr Sulaiman Habib’s paper also found out that most roads in Uganda lack zebra crossings, walkways, or cycling lanes, have poor or no road markings and poor visibility at junctions and have inadequate signage.
Even where there are walkways like in all cities and major urban centres, the boda-boda, which has so defeated the government, have turned them in their stages.
Most boda-boda riders also stubbornly use walkways, and any attempt to remind them will always lead to threats or even physical confrontation with impunity.
A call by citizens to the Central Government through the Ministry of Works and Transport to regulate the boda-boda industry in the country has fallen on a hard stone as it always degenerates into politics.
Experts say the causes of road crashes in Uganda are blamed human errors, weather, and the poor state of some roads.
The government of Uganda spends billions of shillings in treating accident victims yet the money could instead be used to promote socio-economic transformation, a key phrase which has become the catchword of President Yoweri Museveni in his wealth creation campaign.
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